Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The other day a friend and I engaged in a discussion about the ending of Ibsen’s famous play, “Ghosts.” I quoted it as I had (mis)remembered it. Fortunately, though, I have a set of Ibsen’s works in the original, and was able to correct myself by that means. Please don’t write me in Norwegian, though, as my knowledge only suffices to make out existing texts, not to converse in the language.

Quite a while back, as an aid to language learning, I picked up the habit of acquiring the texts of such major authors as Cervantes and Rabelais in the original. These virtuosos of language employ effects that no translation can capture. In addition, for some authors I have texts in three or more languages. For example, I possess Don Quixote in Spanish, English, French, and German. Every translation is, after all, an interpretation.

Just as an exercise, I decided to assemble a kind of Pantheon of authors I have in at least three languages. Here is the list: the Daodejing; Homer; the Pre-Socratics; Aeschylus; Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; Plutarch; Plotinus; Dante; Rabelais and Cervantes; Hölderlin; Ezra Pound and Walter Benjamin. Notice the predominance of Greek authors, which probably reflects the fact that I do not read Greek with ease. Pound and Benjamin are certainly an odd couple. The winner is Dante’s Divine Comedy, which I have in five languages (not to mention various commentaries and monographs on the writer). Missing from the lists are Shakespeare and Goethe, because I have their works in only two languages.

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About Me

I like to consider myself a citizen of Cosmopolis, ranging widely across the humanities. I have traveled to 45 countries, and speak five languages. Out of self-interest, I am concerned with current affairs in my own country. Writing is important to me: I have published seventeen books (including edited volumes).
My beginning the blog coincided with my retirement. No longer muzzled, I felt, by the demands of being a salaried professor, I gave vent to my untrammeled opinions. Sometimes, perhaps, too much so--but it is my right, all the same. Here is an appropriate motto from La Fontaine: Est bien fou du cerveau qui prétend contenter tout le monde et son père. ("The Miller, His Son, and the Donkey"). For my work in linguistics see the revised (electronic) version of Homolexis at www.williamapercy.com/homolexis/index.php?title=Main_Page; for the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, see:
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/BIB/EOH/index.htm. See also the electronic version of my 1987 book, Homosexuality: A Research Guide (/www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/BIB/ResGde/main.htm).